Apologetics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 2 – Spring 2018
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By Jane Dawson. Yale University Press, 2015. 384 pages. Paperback, $25.00.
Jane Dawson is a professor of Reformation History at the University of Edinburgh. Dawson’s biography of John Knox is a straightforward telling of his life and work. She offers little critique of Knox, rather hoping to provide a balanced look at the figure who most often is seen as a hot-headed demagogue and most often remembered for his passionate sermons. Dawson’s biography is mostly sympathetic. One of the more important contributions Dawson makes is her inclusion of newly discovered letters between John Knox and Christopher Goodman (4, 90). This sort of discovery is always helpful and appreciated from a historian. With these sources, Dawson attempts to show that John Knox should be treated with more affection than he has been recently and to show that he was not always an aggressive rabble-rouser. With new sources in hand, Dawson attempts to re-evaluate certain questions about Knox: How scholarly was he? How angry was he? It is clear from her biography that Dawson sees John Knox as a well-meaning reformer who was more preacher than scholar and whose ministry was shaped more by passionate preaching for Christ than by angry preaching against the Catholic Church.
Dawson writes a straightforward history of Knox with very little theological critique. Her focus is primarily tracing Knox’s journey and trying to offer “Knox’s side of the story.” Dawson gets the facts straight and constantly refers to the primary sources. Her near novelization of John Knox is also a delight to read. The details she provides on his personal life and letters, especially regarding his protracted and loving engagement to his first wife Marjorie, leave the reader wondering if he is reading Jane Dawson or Jane Austen.
Her intentionally whimsical style is an interesting choice given the epic saga of Knox’s life: his multiple exiles and constant battles in Scotland. For example, she says of Knox’s temperament that “[i]f a nail needed driving home the Scot reached for a sledgehammer; if salt were needed to cleanse a scour, then he picked up a shovel” (79). The only difficultly reading Dawson is the unfortunately tiny font in which the book was published.
If Dawson’s only purpose is to endear John Knox to the reader, then she succeeds completely. However, Dawson hopes to demonstrate that John Knox slowly developed into the firebrand and radical preacher that he is reputed to be. Dawson wants to show that he begins life much gentler and kinder, and that perhaps scholars should treat him a bit more amiably (3). This idea of Knox developing into a fiery radical is undercut by the facts Dawson presents of his early life. As a young protégé to George Wishart, Knox was parading around behind George with a massive sword strapped to his back—looking as though ready to start an insurrection at any moment (29). Furthermore, he was refusing positions in the English church over doctrinal issues before having to flee to the continent from Mary Tudor. These early radical features may work against Dawson’s central contention that Knox develops into a hardened, uncompromising warrior when he eventually returns to Scotland. Rather, it seems that he always had a flare for the dramatic. Still, even as Dawson honestly reports all this, she begs the reader not to view him as a one-sided character of historical fiction, but as a real person with the whole range of human emotion. Dawson is correct and helpful on this point.
The only other comment regarding the book concerns what it is not; it is not a work of theology. Dawson rarely engages in a theological evaluation of Knox or any of his contemporaries. She simply presents the facts of his journey in the kindest possible light. Still, it would be unfair to judge a book for what it is not, or for possessing too much sugar and not enough salt. Dawson brings new material to light, she is honest with the primary sources, and she is thorough in her examination. These are excellent qualities for a historical biography, and this is an excellent historical biography.
